Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

[164] throw us into confusion, or to divert our attention, at pleasure, whenever they choose to seduce or coerce any five of our number to step out of the ranks or behave unseemly there!

It would seem that principles and feelings are at work in Massachusetts, in the abolition ranks, that are unknown elsewhere, because a breach has been made there that is disproportioned to the cause, so far as we can judge.

3. You ask if it is magnanimous to leave you to manage single-handed a concern that affects the cause. Certainly not if it be indeed such a monstrous subject as you suppose. But we [do] not think it is. In our judgment, the Appeal is not fraught with so much evil as you seem to apprehend. We do not think it very formidable, nor that it requires all the abolition artillery in the nation to quell it. It has appeared to me that you alone could have given the coup de grace to this procedure if in a short article you had treated the ‘Appeal’ as a hasty, injudicious affair—one that the signers would soon regret; had expressed your regret that there had been any cause of complaint, and had solemnly and affectionately appealed to the signers, and all others, to overlook private, personal, and trifling considerations, at such a crisis as this, and devote themselves with new zeal and energy to the accomplishment of the great object for which we have associated. Then, if what has been faulty in the Liberator had been amended, the hearts of the abolitionists in Massachusetts would have been knit together anew, and they would, I fain believe, have been stronger than ever.

You think that the Emancipator and Executive Committee are both bound to meet the injurious aspersions in the Appeal officially, and that if we refuse so to do, we shall need to be admonished by abolitionists universally. I confess I am surprised, dear Garrison, at your earnestness in this matter. Why, if fifty clerical abolitionists should publish an ‘Appeal,’ I for one would hesitate long before I gave my vote, as a member of the Executive Committee, for any official notice of it whatever. I would rather vote for a resolution to censure those brethren who magnified the Appeal, and turned aside, at such a crisis, to wage battle with part of our own troops, improperly as they were conducting. Admonition cannot hurt us, and if any of our constituents are even angry with us, we must not swerve from what we deem the line of duty. No, dear friend, we must and will act according to our deliberate and conscientious